


Cotton Clouds

by sinemoras09



Category: LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS (Cartoon), Love Death + Robots: Sonnie's Edge
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Found Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:29:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22721740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinemoras09/pseuds/sinemoras09
Summary: Sonnie and Ivrina talk about next steps after Dicko's death. AU. Based on the Netflix version of "Sonnie's Edge."
Comments: 7
Kudos: 38





	Cotton Clouds

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on the Netflix short - I've never read the work by Peter F. Hamilton, so consider this an AU :)

"We reviewed the tape, it's clearly an act of self-defense." The investigator taps his papers on his desk while Ivrina and Wes fidget nervously, Sonnie standing impassively behind them. "It's a good thing you were still hooked up to that creature there."

"Beastie," Sonnie says. The investigators all turn to look at her.

The security footage is grainy, black and white, with no sound. As they zoom in, they can see Dicko's chick pushing down her top, scooting onto the bench to kiss Sonnie, before impaling her neck with wolverine-like claws. "Fuck," an investigator says. On the video, she drops Sonnie just out of frame, with just enough of her body showing so they can see the woman savagely kicking Sonnie again and again in the skull. They don't see the damage, just Dicko and the woman leering over her, before Khanivore bursts through the glass and rescues her.

"Fuckin' A, Sonnie, I can't believe our luck," Ivrina says. It's daylight, and she and Wes bound down the capitol steps, Sonnie sauntering behind them. "I was convinced you'd be strung up for murder for sure."

"Or that they'd wanna destroy Khanivore," Wes says. Behind them, Sonnie shrugs.

"Self-defense," Sonnie says. "They can't argue the tape."

"You gotta be careful, Sonnie," Wes says. "Dicko's men are pissed. I heard there's rumblings in the underground. Fuckers wanting to avenge him." Ivrina groans.

"I still can't believe it. That bitch's tits were out and you lost all fuckin' sense of self-preservation."

"They were nice tits," Sonnie says. Wes and Ivrina groan aloud.

*****

It doesn't take long to re-construct Sonnie's skull. Just a few hours with the 3D printer, the tissue bloc of Sonnie's DNA fed into the clone compiler to regrow muscles and skin. Sonnie's replacement skull is like that of a Terminator robot, a cybernetic endoskeleton head jammed onto a living spinal cord. Wes splices the head back on and Ivrina activates the neural uplink, and the fake Sonnie's eyes open. She grimaces, twisting her head.

"Fucking hell," Sonnie says. Wes and Ivrina glance at each other.

Unlike the Beastie operators who have only partial consciousness of their Beastie's movements, Sonnie fully inhabits the robot head atop her old body. "We can do that because this isn't synthesized, it's a real fucking body," Wes had said, when Sonnie shot up, hyperventilating and dizzy, her consciousness lurching from the tank and diving back ostensibly into her old body. "It's like, fuckin' astral projection or some shit. You're either in the tank or you're over here."

It took awhile getting used to.

"Sonnie. You ever think of trying to re-graft your brain onto your old body?" Wes asks. They're back at their compound, Sonnie walking around, getting used to the movements of her new head, while Ivrina listens quietly. "I mean, the thing with Khanivore was a stopgap. We have the technology. We could 3D print ya a new body."

"Those bodies aren't as strong as real ones." Sonnie punches, once, twice, before turning slowly to look at him. "But more to the point, Wes. No one's been able to successfully re-transplant a fuckin' human head."

Wes scratches his head, frowning. Ivrina comes up to her.

"We was so fuckin' scared," Ivrina says. "Not even talking about the whole shit with Dicko. That fight fucked us up."

"I was shittin' myself," Wes says. Sonnie smiles. Ivrina shakes her head.

"Look, it's a bum wrap, is all we're sayin, yeah? Havin' to keep fuckin' fighting so we can keep that body--"

"That body is my body, Ivrina. You're talking to the puppet," Sonnie says. Ivrina sighs heavily.

"I know that, Love," Ivrina says. She drops her hands on Sonnie's shoulders. "You're like a fuckin' sister to me. So you know I'm just sayin' this out of a fuckin' abundance of concern."

"If we don't fight, we can't keep Khanivore," Sonnie says. "If we can't keep Khanivore, I'm fuckin' dead. I ain't got no choice in the matter."

Wes starts, "We can try building a synthetic body--"

"No," Sonnie says. She turns to look at him.

"When you transferred me, you told me there was a chance I wouldn't fucking make it. But it worked. I don't know how the hell you did it, Wes, but somehow you fuckin' patched my brain into Khanivore's skull despite it being banged up to hell."

"Like a jello-shaped football, all wobbly and bruised," Wes says. He taps on a keyboard. "Those conditions weren't controlled, though. You were dying. If we try to transfer ya now, I can always abort the process if we start to fuck it up."

"We can't know that. At least in the ring I got some control," Sonnie says. Ivrina hugs her.

"Please don't go diving after strangers' titties," Ivrina says. Sonnie snorts.

"You're never gonna let me live that down, are you?" Sonnie says. Ivrina squeezes her and speaks into her shoulder.

"We'll find some nice girl for ya, yeah? Maybe a kindergarten teacher who fuckin works in the sunshine and lives above ground."

"Ha," Sonnie says. The three of them laugh at each other.

*****

After the fight, before Sonnie got attacked by Dicko and Jennifer, Wes was pacing the underground, shitting bricks.

"Fuck!" Wes said. Ivrina was also upset. Sonnie spread her arms and marched forward, victoriously.

"I won, didn't I?" Sonnie said. Ivrina deflated.

"You fucking nearly killed yourself doing it," Ivrina said. Sonnie flopped down on the couch while Wes grabbed a flask, gulping down vodka like water. "Me and Wes was shittin' bricks, we were. We thought you were a goner!"

They go home. Sonnie flops onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling and replaying the investigator's words. _Lucky. Self-defense._ It was a clean kill and Sonnie wasn't ever in any real danger, just really inconvenienced. Outside her bedroom, she can hear Wes and Ivrina talking. Don't these fuckers ever sleep? Sonnie wonders. Then again, they only have to operate one body, and they don't have to ride a wave of adrenaline in a fucking death ring, besides.

In the tank, Khanivore twitches. Outside, Sonnie pulls up the covers and closes her eyes.

*****

The Affinity Link is always active, even when the body needs to sleep.

There's always a brief moment. A brief moment of disorientation, as Sonnie the puppet's eyes close and Sonnie the Beastie goes unconscious. Before the sleep hits, Sonnie is suddenly aware of the tank and the fluid and her massive monster body floating in the pool. It fucks her up, to be honest. But then sleep comes and she doesn't have to think much about it.

"Khanivore's body needs some healin'." Wes opens the tank so he can graft on new blocks of tissue onto the hole the last fucker had drilled into her. "Fuckin' knives for arms. That oughtta be a fuckin' disqualification," Wes says. Sonnie's voice booms through the speakers.

_"It fucked me up, that's for sure."_

"Hold still, Love," Ivrina says, and Wes surgically repairs the wound.

"Hey, Sonnie, can I ask ya something?" Wes taps on his tablet while Sonnie the puppet rubs her shoulders, then looks at him.

"Yeah, what is it?" Sonnie asks. Wes clears his throat.

"So, when you have sex with other women--"

"Here it comes," Ivrina says.

"Can you, you know, actually fuckin' feel it? It bein' cause you're controlling a puppet and all..."

"Yeah, I can feel it," Sonnie says. "Just like I could feel Khanivore gettin' stabbed in the guts in the ring. It's the same fuckin' thing."

"Well I'm just wonderin', you know, if the puppet orgasms, does the Beastie orgasm too? I'm just asking for science," Wes says. Ivrina snorts.

"Fuckin' science," Ivrina says. Sonnie shakes her head.

"You're fucked in the head, Wes. You're lucky you're my friend."

*****

This is what happened the night they found her.

Sonnie wasn't conscious - not fully, anyway. All she remembers is the pain. Searing, white-hot, like fire licking her skin. Her whole body was a throbbing, aching mass. Her throat gurgled. Her mouth was filled with the taste of copper and warm, gushing blood.

And then she was in the tank. To this day Sonnie doesn't know how much time had passed, how many hours it was from when Wes and Ivrina found her half-naked and nearly beaten to death, to when they bodily dragged her onto the workbench and worked furiously to save her. When Sonnie opened her eyes, she knew immediately she was in Khanivore. The Beastie screamed, throwing its heavy body into the reinforced glass. She wanted to sob, but she couldn't sob, since Beasties didn't have fucking lachrymal glands.

Wes was somber when he spoke to her. "Sonnie, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but since you're in this body, you still gotta fight." She was out of the tank, her monster's body crunched beneath the fluorescent lights of their underground lab. Sonnie isn't the type of person to cry, and she didn't cry then, but the searing weight of Wes's words landed on her monstrous chest. She took a step back, her tails swinging. Her voice warbled out of the speakers.

_"I have to fight?"_

Her voice came out through speakers that transmitted her thoughts through a neural uplink. Wes nodded, gravely.

"If you don't, we won't be allowed to keep the Beastie."

 _"Fuck,"_ Sonnie said. She paced, her tail swinging, angrily.

They put what was left of her human body into the tank. It was surreal - Sonnie could see the gaping wound on the headless neck, the frayed bits of spinal cord and torn nerves suspended like hair underwater.

"How's it look, Sonnie?" Wes said, and he showed the head to her: eyes closed, smooth hair. Perfect, unmarred skin.

 _"You need to add some scars,"_ Sonnie said. Ivrina took a step forward.

"Scars?" Ivrina said. Sonnie nodded.

_"I got fuckin' sliced in the face before they kicked me in the head. I need a couple fuckin' scars."_

They worked. Wes took a scalpel and made a clean incision into the newly cloned flesh, then purposefully stitched it in such a way so it wouldn't cleanly heal.

"How's it look now?" Wes asked. Ivrina steepled her hands together, worried, while Sonnie peered at the head from the tank.

 _"Better,"_ Sonnie said.

*****

It's a lonely fucking life, being a Beastie operator. That doesn't really change even after she's forcibly shoved into the body of a kaiju.

She should have known better. Fuck, she really should have known better. A two minute conversation, and that chick was already shaking her tits? It's not even the fact that the woman tried to kill her. It's more that Sonnie thought she found a connection, however fleeting. Thought she found someone who could stand to be around her.

"You know what's fucked up?" Sonnie says. Ivrina and Wes look up. "That bitch was my first kiss in a fucking year."

"You sure know how to pick 'em," Ivrina says.

*****

It's daylight. The sun is out, the sky a bright blue and covered with fuckin' cotton candy clouds. "Hey, Ivrina," Sonnie says. "If I ever date that kindergarten teacher, how the fuck do I tell her about Khanivore?" Ivrina shrugs.

"Tell her about the fuckin' Estate Gang," Ivrina says. "It's your body, Love. It's just your brain is housed somewhere else."

The Affinity Link pulses green on the puppet Sonnie's skull. Sonnie pulls on her hood, silently.

"Guess it'd be nice, you know. Datin' someone sweet and has fuckall to do with the Underground--"

"Yeah," Ivrina says, nodding. Sonnie's eyes flick upward, meeting hers.

"You really think Wes can do it? Transfer my brain back to this body?"

"I mean, usually Wes is full of shit, Love, but he's been workin' on it pretty hard, I think it could actually fuckin' work," Ivrina says. Sonnie considers.

"I fuckin' hate having to fuckin' fight," Sonnie says. "I want to date a kindergarten teacher and have picnics and shit above ground."

Ivrina laughs. "You? On a fuckin' picnic?"

"Yeah. And we can have like, a fuckin' cheese spread and baguettes and all that fancy bullshit. And you and Wes can tag along."

"Oh, like a couple of fuckin' losers? Me and Wes, hanging around you on your picnic date with the teacher?"

"Someone's gotta make sure she's just a girl with nice tits and not a fucking banger," Sonnie says.

The crack up, wheezing at each other. The sun is warm. The sky is bright blue behind cotton clouds.


End file.
